"I suppose that I may leather my own son if I choose?" said the man, savagely.
"You ought to remember that he is deformed through your cruelty," cried the constable, "and that his mother died of fright and grief——"
"Hold your tongue, blue-bottle!" interrupted Smithers, his lips quivering with rage. "It isn't for you to come and make mischief in a family. Get out with you!"
"But if we leave this poor girl to the rage of her uncle," said Markham to the constable, whom he drew aside and thus addressed in a whisper, "he will do her some injury."
"What is to be done with her, sir?" demanded the officer. "Smithers says she is his niece——"
"Is it not certain that she stands in such a degree of relationship towards him?" inquired our hero, whose humane heart was moved in favour of the suffering girl.
"Now, then, what are you chattering about there?" ejaculated Smithers. "I want to go to bed: Gibbet, you be off to your room—and, Kate, you go to yours. This is mine—and I should advise the blue-bottle with his spy in plain clothes to make themselves scarce."
"Remember, I shall report you to our serjeant," said the policeman; "and he will tell the Division to keep an eye on you."
"Tell him whatever you like," returned the man doggedly.
The hump-back and Katherine had already left the room in obedience to the command of Smithers.